Many pirates are pathological. So why do we romanticize them?

The question is why. Historically they did very bad things, not only stealing but performing incredible acts of brutality. François l’Olonnais, a French pirate active in the Caribbean in the 1660s, was known to cut open the chests of his victims and take a bite out of their hearts.

So why, then, do we romanticize pirates? Why do we dress up like them and play pirates? Why do we name baseball and football teams after them?

It’s a question Thomas Oertling, a lecturer in maritime studies at Texas A&M University at Galveston, has given some thought to. He teaches a very popular course on piracy at the university. The class covers everything from ancient piracy to the Golden age from 1680 to 1720 when Black Bart, Captain Kidd and other pirates were active.

The course also delves into popular culture and piracy, Oertling says.

We, and Hollywood, love our pirates. (Disney)

“I like to get them to start asking about our image of pirates, and why our image of piracy from stories and books is a very different one from reality. Why is that? We have a lot of recreational piracy in modern life, each Renaissance Faire has a pirate weekend, we have national talk like a pirate day. Who is buying this, and why? Why is there this fascination with pirates?”

So what’s the answer?

“My guess is because we need to. Pirates did have a reputation for living outside the box, they made their own rules up, and in late 17th or early 18th century they had freedom and they did what they want. A lot of people can identify with freedom to do what they want. It’s inviting, gaining gold and wealth and doubloons. What’s diminished is the price someone has to pay for that. What we forget about is the violence, violation of people and their property. It’s glossed over and maybe it’s the Robin Hood effect.”

But the realities then, and today, are pretty ugly.

“Many of these pirates were pathological, and I don’t think the violence or brutality has changed at all. About the only thing that’s changed is modern technology, with fast motor boats, rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s. “

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It’s gets more complicated still when history teaches that some pirates, like Francis Drake and Jean Lafitte, actually were good guys some of the time. Kids get confused about who’s a good pirate and who’s a bad pirate. The confusion seeps into the culture and trickles down to their early development. Peter Pan becomes Jake and the Neverland Pirates, which is targeted at pre-K and younger. Now we have children who want to be pirates.

I’m shocked you didn’t mention software piracy at all. But it’s the same fascination. We love hackers; just watch the movie Sneakers. It’s still an interesting movie today, although everything they do with hardware we would do today with software.

Nah, that’s easy: if they have letters of marque and reprisal and are attacking your enemies, then they are good pirates. If they don’t have a letter of marque and reprisal or are attacking your friends, then they are bad pirates.

We love hackers; just watch the movie Sneakers.

I would suggest that the same is true about nearly any group that is outside the mainstream. We have romanticized Alaskan gold miners (from London to TV), fishermen (ibidem), cowboys, indigenous Americans, fighter pilots, astronauts, and steamboat pilots. And, though each of these groups contains many that are admirable and exemplary, they also contain those who are less so. The pirates are merely an extreme example of the extremes.

Actually JohnD it can be even simpler. If you are the pirate you are a good guy, anyone else being a pirate is a bad pirate. Point of view my friend, point of view. You will find that many truths we cling to, depend on a certain point of view. -Obi Wan Kenobi.

To put it another simple way: a privateer is a private citizen whose government has granted him permission to commit acts of piracy against shipping of some other designated nation. So to that second nation, the person is a pirate and will be hanged if caught.

I remember a movie about Jean Lafitte in which he was depicted as a good-guy pirate, because he was really, really insistent that his men never attack any American ships. At one point one crew attacked an American ship when Lafitte himself was not along for the ride. An when he found out, the Wrath of Jean was truly terrible.

The movie starred Inger Stevens as Lafitte’s girlfriend, and had Lorne Greene in some minor, pre-Bonanza role.

I think that there’s a bit of truth to that effect–and this is what makes Brian LeCompte’s “complicated” post relevant. The “good guys” hired privateers to, effectively, do exactly what the pirates did but for the ruling empires of the time. So, the pathology of piracy isn’t owned completely by the outlaws.

I’ve read it argued that the economics of hacking is very similar to the economics of piracy. Hackers have traditionally been in the gray area of the law but recent events involving Obama’s marshalling of Stuxnet and disablement of Iranian nuclear facilities have put them in the privateer class as well.

The most modern “Pirate” is the guy that breaks into your house to steal your things and possibly harm you and your family. We have solutions for that and it is called by various names, e.g. S&W, GLOCK, Winchester, etc. I say anyone who breaks into your home at the same time forfeits their right to live a minute longer.

One of my roommates is a HUGE pirate fan (since she was 4 years old). She wanted to hang a pirate flag outside of our house. Another roommate was so outraged by this that she said she would only accept that if we flew a US Navy flag next to it. That roommate’s gone, and the pirate-loving one got her way, because it wasn’t about supporting piracy. It was (is) about enjoying a non-realistic ideal. We like fantasy pirates. They’re dashing and handsome and reject all authority and make great fiction. No one is arguing that real pirates are very, very bad.

(Sidenote: All of us are Sea Aggies, thought I’m not sure any of us had classes with Dr. Oertling. ;D WHOOP!)

Johnny has certainly helped the image, but now that he is playing Tonto, and they are filming at one of my favorite trout fly fishing spots and shutting it down a week to film, I am rethinking that image…..

It’s pretty simple, we dress like pirates for Halloween because they look cool (at least our interpretation). They carry swords, and swords are cool. The Hollywood image of a pirate is the rock star of the 1700′s. There is a reason why they only person (that I’m aware) is featured on a bottle of booze – Captain Morgan is cool.

Johnny has certainly helped that image, but now that he is playing Tonto, and they are filming at one of my favorite trout fly fishing spots and shutting it down for a week to film, I am rethinking that…..

I would imagine that the study of pirates over the eons have taught us that governments need to engage citizens in the process that leads up to taxes, laws and regulations.

Dropping a tax bomb or law or regulation on a surprised citizenry and you’ll end up with a group of angry citizens who will ambush who they think is causing their frustration and feeling of hopelessness.

Seeking to implement a public policy of full employment for the citizenry cuts down on the number of people who choose to be pirates, I would imagine.

We romanticize everything if it’s long enough gone. We need our myths.

Look at America’s founding fathers. They were genocidal, slave-owning, syphillitic, terrorists bent on keeping power solely in the hands of wealthy, white, land owners – namely themselves. Ben Franklin was even an avowed devil worshipper.

So, what are your opinions on the Spaniards when they invaded the native tribes of South America, Central America and Mexico? Or did you know them on a personal level as well, when you took your time machine there?

The Somali pirates are fairly good, as pirates go. As long as the crews aren’t killed or injured in the initial attack, they’re held for ransom along with the ships and cargo.

The pirates in the area of Indonesia and the rest of the Southeast Asian islands are much worse. The crews go overboard, the cargo gets sold for whatever it can bring, and the ships are sold, sunk, or scrapped. Small craft just disappear.

Historically, the best place to attack pirates is on shore. The Caribbean pirates didn’t go away until their pirate villages were overrun and razed. The Barbary Coast pirates didn’t stop their activities until their cities were subjected to reprisals. The only way of stopping the Somali pirates isn’t to sink their boats on the water, it’s to track them to their villages, follow them, and level the village, preferably without killing the inhabitants. After a few villages are burned, the remaining ones will get the idea that piracy is too expensive a way to make a living.

Somalia is one of the countries targeted during the Bush43 years.
Nice coastline near one of the main oil shipping routes in the world.
Its government collapsed and men with guns took over.
With the government out of the way, Somalia’s territorial waters became unregulated and the Europeans fished there. The Europeans also dumped waste products there, that they could not dump at home. The “pirates” slowed some of that down. It is also evident that over time they could be bribed to stop ships from North Korea and other places of interest.

A modern ship is a huge machine with very few crewmen. The officers are often German or Russian with the crew from some Asian country. It is not hard to seize a ship, esp. when they are sitting in line waiting to transit the Suez Canal. And one of the strange things about these pirate, they
often all wear OD fatigues, not the individualistic garbs of them of old.

I like pirates. I also think Darth Vader, The Joker, and ninjas are cool. We live in a world where we are supposed to good, often PC even and I think we want to stretch our imaginations and pretend that we don’t have to be so nice and proper and definitely PC.
It can be fun to play the bad guy. It can be fun to be the bad guy, until you go too far and everyone lines up against you. It is safer and more fun to just pretend. Except for PC. I refuse to be PC.

People romanticize fictional pirates that never existed, which were much “neater” than the real thing. We do the same thing with anything medieval at the Renaissance Festival, too–we keep all the whimsy and fashion but lose the not bathing and numerous medical problems.

Same with cowboy gunfighters……years ago in Sealy a man proudly showed me where they had their last gun fight in days of yore……I said heck, they have gunfights in Houston every night…..he gave me a look of disdain and said “it’s not the same thing”…go figure

A little known fact is that most historical “pirates” were on the payroll of governments that needed them to harass and loot enemy maritime interest. The only problem is that they could easily be bought by the enemy. The pirates portrayed today are a modern caricature of the real thing. They were of ill health, very poor hygiene and chicken shts when confronted by real navies.

Why romanticize pirates? Their exploits — true or not — make great stories! Beyond books and movies, think of theme park rides like Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean or the Monkey Island series of games for personal computers. How much fun it is to loot and pillage and talk funny in a fantasyland when it hurts nobody.

Eric I think your guess is accurate. Plus the fact that the media like to exploit the actions of pirates in books and movies, which in turn, ‘brainwashes’ young people into believing that pirates are a ’cause celebre’.

Maybe many of us cheer for faith. There are laws of man that in a “civilized” society the majority of the “subjects” follow. However misplaced, the pirate runs contrary to that we cheer him on to success much like we would the Saints winning their first super bowl against all odds of success.

We many look for anyone that STANDS to conquer the odds, in hopes that that will prove our very destiny is controlled not by the numbers or rational behavior but on courage to stand for something or anything on faith and succeed.
And in an uncivilized society, the good guy always loses; but if he should win there are many formerly in the background now cheering.
For every one rooting against the suicide bomber, there is one victimized brethren, even a bomb-maker, too much a coward themselves, cheering them on. And on both sides the cowards could be cheering for the devil him/her self. Doing nothing, sometimes, is better than doing something. But cheerleaders…. They are neither hot nor cold. Which would you rather be?